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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28802847">A Reel Kinney Christmas</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina'>Severina</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Queer as Folk (US)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, community: qaf_giftxchnge</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:47:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,942</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28802847</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When a storm sidelines Gus's arrival in Pittsburgh, the gang devises a way to send him a message.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Brian Kinney/Justin Taylor (Queer as Folk)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Queer as Folk Holiday Gift Exchange</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Reel Kinney Christmas</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=asm614">asm614</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for asm614 for the QaF Gift Exchange. I had to incorporate a little Die Hard as well. I couldn't help myself.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*  *  *</p>
</div>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>A Reel Kinney Christmas<br/>By Severina</p>
</div>"I'm just saying--"<p>"You're always just saying."</p>
<p>"… that he could have had the forethought to book us onto a flight that wasn't leaving on Christmas Eve when the airport is packed," Melanie finished.</p>
<p>Lindsay shifted a sleeping Gus further up onto her shoulder and handed the attendant her boarding pass and passport with an apologetic smile. The argument had been raging on and off with Mel since they'd gotten into the taxi, had continued on the long drive to the airport, and now her head was pounding, her left arm was numb from Gus's weight, and it was taking everything in her not to scream. Instead, she waited until they were walking through the boarding tunnel to shoot her wife a glare. </p>
<p>"We're lucky Brian even volunteered to pay for our tickets," she pointed out, trying to keep her voice calm and even. "God knows we couldn't have afforded this trip home otherwise." </p>
<p>"You <i>know</i> I can only work as a legal aid in Canada until-"</p>
<p>"I wasn't criticizing," Lindsay interrupted. Again she juggled Gus's weight, this time as she tried to maneuver down the narrow aisle of the aircraft. She breathed out in relief as she settled the sleeping boy into his favourite spot, the window seat, and straightened to stretch out her aching lower back. She was getting the aches and pains of an old woman. Time to re-think attending that yoga class. "But the fact remains that you don't control your hours anymore, and you were stuck working up until the last minute anyway. Never mind that Brian was lucky to find us these seats at all after our plans to drive fell through."</p>
<p>"He probably fucked a travel agent."</p>
<p>"Mel!" Lindsay scolded as a woman passing by in the aisle gasped and shot them a startled look. It might be true, but that didn't mean Melanie had to announce it to every passenger in first class. She bent to tuck her bag under the seat before gratefully sinking into the chair opposite her son. "Can't you just be grateful for once?"</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>* * *</p>
</div>"We're here!" Debbie shouted as she hustled through the milling crowd near the gates. "We're here! Michael, get out the sign! Did we miss them?"<p>Justin straightened from where he'd been leaning against a post, idly watching the snow fall outside the large bank of windows, and watched Debbie barrel through the crowd, Michael trailing sheepishly at her heels. She practically sprinkled glitter and rainbows in her wake, got more than one incredulous look, and was happily oblivious to all of it. There was only one Debbie Novotny. </p>
<p>"Calm down, Deb," Brian said at his side. "Their plane is still circling."</p>
<p>"It took us twenty-five goddamn minutes to find a parking spot!" Debbie huffed out as she finally reached them. </p>
<p>"And they just finished that new parking complex, too," Ted said.</p>
<p>"Be nice if they opened it before I start collecting social security," Deb complained.</p>
<p>"Wait. You brought the sign?" Emmett wrinkled his nose as Michael began unfurling the tattered Welcome Home banner that had definitely seen better days.</p>
<p>"Don't you think you should retire that thing?" Ted asked. </p>
<p>"It <i>has</i> seen better days, Deb," Emmett agreed apologetically.</p>
<p>"What do you mean?" Deb protested. "This is special!"</p>
<p>"Well, sure," Ted tried, "but you probably don't have to use it <i>every</i> time somebody comes home to visit. You just saw Lindsay and Gus on Thanksgiving."</p>
<p>"She used it last time I came home, too," Justin put in. "It was hanging outside the house--"</p>
<p>"That's right," Emmett said. "Didn't that old man across the street think you'd just gotten home from some war?"</p>
<p>"He shook my hand and thanked me for my service," Justin said. "Awkward."</p>
<p>"For what it's worth, I think your services are exemplary," Brian said.</p>
<p>"Ugh," Michael said.  "You know, Brian, some people don't make everything about sex."</p>
<p>"Oh, that's right," Brian said. "Some people are boring. Speaking of, where's the Professor?"</p>
<p>"Ha ha," Michael said. "He had to stay home to take care of Jenny."</p>
<p>"I would've protested but we're all going to be together tomorrow." Debbie clapped her hands together. "It's going to be so nice to have everybody home for Christmas!"</p>
<p>Some small part of Justin wanted to be cynical, but Winter Wonderland was playing on the airport speaker system, the snow was light and fluffy, Debbie's eyes were shining, and Brian's hand was warm in his. Later tonight there would be a soft duvet and a fire in the hearth and Brian's lips memorizing his body all over again. And tomorrow there would be laughter and Deb's apple pie with extra cinnamon and a found family where he would always belong. It <i>was</i> nice to have everybody home for Christmas. At least--</p>
<p>"It will be, if that plane ever lands," Justin said.</p>
<p>"Everything's just backlogged," Michael said. "Too many planes and not enough runways."</p>
<p>"Oooh, this reminds me of that movie," Ted said. "John McClane's wife is stuck on an airplane that's running out of fuel and all the runways are dark--</p>
<p>"And McClane has to save her, so he's running around the airport," Emmett said with an excited clap. </p>
<p>"So of course he has to strip down to his undershirt," Ted said.</p>
<p>"Of course," Emmett agreed. "It's hot, doing all that running."</p>
<p>"Biceps for days," Michael put in.</p>
<p>"And then he sets the plane's fuel on fire to make her a landing strip!" Emmett said.</p>
<p>Justin looked from Ted to Michael to Emmett, all of them chortling and rambling on to each other about explosions and some naked guy doing Tai Chi, and then looked over at Brian. "This has got to be some ancient movie from the '50s or something, right?"</p>
<p>Brian cuffed him lightly on the back of the head. "Try the '80s."</p>
<p>"Like I said," Justin shrugged. "Ancient."</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*  *  *</p>
</div>"Bad news," Emmett said when he jogged back over to them forty-five minutes later. By the time they sent him on a fact-finding mission the number of planes circling the airport had nearly doubled, the light and fluffy snow had turned into sharp and stinging ice pellets, and there wasn't a single flight on the electronic board that wasn't listed as 'delayed.'<p>"Well?" Debbie asked.</p>
<p>"Okay, so that guy at the United desk? Turned out he was <i>not</i> the guy who blew me at Weigh Your Balls night, but he <i>was</i> the guy that—"</p>
<p>"Wait." Justin held up a hand. "Weigh Your Balls Night?"</p>
<p>Brian winced. "Babylon <i>may</i> be running out of interesting theme nights."</p>
<p>"Ya think?"</p>
<p>"ANYway," Emmett said, "He <i>was</i> the guy who wanted me to…" </p>
<p>When Emmett hesitated, Justin followed his gaze to the twelve-year-old boy staring at them, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Justin grinned at the kid. In five years, would this boy be standing beneath a street lamp on Liberty Avenue, hoping to finally explore everything he was feeling and falling in love in the bargain?</p>
<p>"Anytime this century, Honeycutt," Brian said.</p>
<p>Emmett blinked. "Right. So Trip, that's the guy, he said—"</p>
<p>"Who names their kid Trip?" Michael interrupted.</p>
<p>"Will you let the man speak?" Ted replied.</p>
<p>"Right." Michael shook his head. "Sorry, Em."</p>
<p>Emmett sighed. "<i>Trip</i> said that he doesn't know for sure, but the scuttlebutt he's hearing is that with the weather getting so bad here they're going to start diverting the planes. He's hearing Akron or Harrisburg, or maybe even Philadelphia if the snow keeps coming down like this."</p>
<p>"Those are hours away!" Debbie squealed. </p>
<p>"Shit," Brian said.</p>
<p>"If only we could talk to Gus," Debbie said. "Are the cell phones still down? Michael?"</p>
<p>Michael shook his head. "I got nothin', Ma."</p>
<p>Justin surreptitiously snuck a glance at his own phone, just in case. No bars. The storm must have knocked down a tower. If it was possible for a storm to knock down a tower.</p>
<p>Debbie rang her hands, effectively destroying even more of her home-made Welcome Home sign. The one potential positive to come out of this, Justin thought, would be if that damn sign was permanently destroyed. "Poor Gus is going to think we abandoned him on Christmas!"</p>
<p>Justin slumped against the wall. He figured Emmett's news must be spreading, because around him he began to hear the first mutterings of complaints, ridiculous vows to sue the airport, worries about how to get loved ones back home once a flight landed somewhere hours away. </p>
<p>"If only we could get a message to Gus and the girls, to tell them that we love them and we miss them and we're going to get them home come hell or high water," Deb lamented.</p>
<p>Brian leaned back as well, sought out his hand. He didn’t have to look at Brian's face to know that he was thinking of the breakfast he'd planned for the morning, filled with Gus's favourite foods; the presents that Brian painstakingly wrapped himself, cursing elaborately the whole time, and now waiting for Gus to dive into them; the several months' worth of moments and memories that he had to cram into a few short days with his son before Melanie and Lindsay took him back to Toronto, and now cut short.</p>
<p>"Wait," Ted said.</p>
<p>"John McClane," Michael said.</p>
<p>"Not a landing strip," Emmett said. "But we could write a message."</p>
<p>Ted nodded. "There's a whole empty parking lot right over there!" </p>
<p>"Boys," Debbie warned.</p>
<p>"It would be safe," Emmett said. </p>
<p>"Well," Michael said, "safe-ish."</p>
<p>Justin gave up on trying to follow the conversation, and just shook his head. "What the fuck are you talking about?"</p>
<p>"Breaking the rules," Ted said. He grinned. "That is, if our fearless leader agrees. Bri?"</p>
<p>Brian barely hesitated before he pushed off from the wall and raised a brow. "Yippy-ki-yay, motherfucker."</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>* * *</p>
</div>"You know that he's going to get Gus something too expensive, like that motorized car he got him for his birthday—"<p>"Which Gus loves," Lindsay pointed out.</p>
<p>"That's not the point, Linds," Mel said. "He splashes out on expensive toys and thinks that will make up for being emotionally distant and—"</p>
<p>"Hey," a voice said from behind them. Lindsay looked up, grateful to the stranger for interrupting the latest litany of Brian's Sins According to Mel, but the man across the aisle was half-standing and looking beyond them and out the window. "Something's on fire out there."</p>
<p>Lindsay spun in her seat, then dimmed the overhead light so that she could easier see out the window. Not that she needed to. If there was a reason that she couldn't see, in fact, it was just because her eyes were filling up with tears. The message blazed in towering flames in the middle of a barren concrete lot.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>LUV U GUS</p>
</div>She gently shook Gus awake, directed his gaze out the window. The sleepy little boy rubbed at his eyes, then beamed.<p>"That's from my dad," he said. He glanced briefly away from the burning message to smile at his moms. "He loves me."</p>
<p>Lindsay brushed a hand through Gus's hair, then leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. She missed Brian. She missed Pittsburgh and her friends. She missed greasy diner food and Deb's smothering love. She wanted to come back home for good.</p>
<p>It wasn't time for that conversation. She and Melanie had a lot to work through, first. She had to stop being so appeasing. She had to fight for what she wanted, and for what she wanted to stop. But when Mel lifted her hand, when Mel's soft lips brushed her knuckles, when Mel whispered "I'm sorry," against her skin, she had faith that everything was going to work out all right.</p>
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